The use of stolen Mobile Identification Numbers (MINs) and Electronic Serial Numbers (ESNs) to fraudulently place wireless telephone calls is causing the cellular telephone industry losses of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As the cellular telephone industry continues to rapidly expand, the fraud losses continue to grow. A major portion of these losses are attributed to "roaming" fraud. Roaming fraud is largely a result of the creation of "cloned MINs/ESNs" taken from legitimate cellular telephone customers in a home region. These cloned numbers from the home region are programmed into modified cellular telephones for use in a roaming region outside of the home region.
When a cloned MIN/ESN cellular telephone registers in a roaming region, the carrier of the roaming region requests the registration data for that MIN/ESN from the carrier in the home region. This registration data is delivered back to the roaming region, allowing the roaming region to provide service, if appropriate. Thus, the system validates that a MIN/ESN is entitled to cellular service in a roaming region, but it does not determine whether the telephone itself is in fact legitimate and not just a clone of the true telephone.
In view of the foregoing, it would be highly desirable to provide a method and apparatus for authenticating that a validated MIN/ESN is being utilized by a legitimate subscriber, not a criminal that has stolen a legitimate subscriber's MIN/ESN.